West Texas A&M University

National News Senior Contributor to Speak at WTAMU Hall of Fame Event

CANYON, Texas—West Texas A&M University’s Department of Communication will welcome Claire Shipman, senior contributor for ABC News and best-selling author of Womenomics, as the featured keynote speaker for its Communication Hall of Fame banquet at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 20 in the Alumni Banquet Facility on campus. Shipman will speak about “How Women are Changing the World, from Politics to the Workplace.”

Shipman serves as a senior contributor for Good Morning America, World News and Nightline, covering politics and other national and international news stories. She regularly conducts indepth interviews with top news-making figures such as Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York. She is the co-author with Kathy Kay of Womenomics: The Workplace Revolution That Will Change Your Life (2009).

Prior to joining ABC News in 2001, Shipman served as White House correspondent for NBC News where she regularly reported on presidential policy and politics for NBC Nightly News and TODAY. Through her on-the-ground reporting during the 2000 presidential campaign, Shipman broke many big election stories. On TODAY, she conducted the first televised interview with then Vice President Al Gore in the wake of his decision to concede the election. She was the first to report that Gore would name Sen. Joseph Lieberman as his running mate and in December 2000, she was the first to report on the Florida Supreme Court’s decision to allow a recount of contested ballots.

Four inaugural inductees to the Communication Hall of Fame also will be introduced and profiled through a brief video presentation. The four WTAMU communication graduates being honored are Matt Adams, executive vice president of Customer Solutions at Insala; Andy Justus, award-winning news anchor for NBC affiliate KAMR in Amarillo; Russell Lowery-Hart, vice president of academic affairs at Amarillo College; and Guy P. Yates, professor emeritus of speech communication.